The Writing Prompt Boot Camp

WD Poetic Form Challenge: Haiku Sonnet Winner

Here are the results of the Writer’s Digest Poetic Form Challenge for the haiku sonnet. As usual, many poems made the original cut before I was able to get it down to a Top 10 list and eventual winner.

White water tumbles
from ledge of rock to talus.
Rain clouds pass on by.

Spray swirls in the air,
gyrating on the way down;
rainbows from within.

The cataract roars
in a torrent of bass notes;
other sounds retreat.

The canyon’s granite
glistens as rough walls turn smooth;
a new channel forms.

Amidst it all, green swallows
fly through capricious hollows.

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Congratulations to everyone in the Top 10! And to everyone who wrote a haiku sonnet!

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Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community, which means he maintains this blog, edits a couple Market Books (Poet’s Market and Writer’s Market), writes a poetry column for Writer’s Digest magazine, leads online education, speaks around the country on publishing and poetry, and a lot of other fun writing-related stuff.

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17 thoughts on “WD Poetic Form Challenge: Haiku Sonnet Winner”

Like Bill, I’ve been hitting and mostly missing news and posts lately but I was so pleased to see that my buddy, Bill Preston, won the challenge with this wonderful poem. I equally loved that the top ten was made up of so many of those I’ve come to think of as my friends because I’ve written and read you for so many years on Robert’s blog. You guys made this little form read so smoothly and beautifully. Wowser to you all.

As an old teacher of mine once said, “Well, blow me down and pick me up.” I have been away for several days, not able to get to the site till now, and am surprised and grateful to learn learn that my poem made the top ten. Thank you, Robert, and thank you all for your kind comments. Congratulations also to the others in the top ten, and to all who tried this challenging form. It will be about another week before I can join regularly again, but I’m looking forward to it.

Beautiful poem, William – congrats! And congrats to all the other poets, even if you are not on the list, I am honored to be among you. And thank you, Robert, for including me in the top ten. There’s certainly a lot of talented poets in this community. I imagine it must be hard narrowing down your choices!

Well, today must be my lucky day. After feeling slightly discouraged about my writing, I had two pleasant surprises to nudge my pen back to the page. One is being in the top ten haiku sonnets with the likes of you all and the other was being in the top three captions for the New Yorker cartoon caption contest. How exciting! Well congratulations to William and everyone in the top ten. I enjoyed reading everyone’s haiku sonnets. “Waterfall” was also one of my favorites. Also be sure to read Nurit Israeli’s, “Waiting.”

Congratulations, Sarah, on both honors! I saw you caption in the New Yorker (“I’m thinking about quitting the band.”): It is my absolute favorite, and I truly hope that it would become the Winning Caption… Also, special thanks for mentioning my “Waiting” haiku sonnet. Honored…